Pied Beauty: Act IV
by heartsn'minds
Summary: Dan reflects on the Queen Bee, on Blair Waldorf. He wonders how he could've avoided falling for her, how he could've kept to himself and not been stung by her venom as so many were...but it's almost impossible to think straight when one has already been poisoned. Dair with some Chair and just a dash of Serenate.


Dan is amazed at how easy it is, to place his heart away in a box. From photographs to letters, to the silly little mementos he keeps wrapped in scented tissue paper…it's all there, lying in a beat up Nike shoebox. He's sure Blair would laugh at him if she saw what a pathetic mess he'd churned himself into, but even with those acidic memories floating through his mind, he can't help but smile because it's _Blair_. The perfect brunette Queen of the Upper East Side…all porcelain skin and ruby red lips, fox eyes and Chanel Mademoiselle scent…he knows that every esteemed member of the unofficial aristocracy of the UES would sneer at him for even thinking about the dark haired Queen Bee but he can't help it. She's a delicious, addictive poison, and she knows it.

She wields whatever power she has with deadly precision; even when her tools are nothing but cotton balls and false promises, she can weave a web so dangerous, produce a weapon so devastating that he's sure any prey without armor would surely perish.

He thought he was one of those intelligent ones - the ones who _knew_ about the trap at large and would ultimately reach into his survival kit, spray whatever repellant it offered, and be on his merry way. But this is the UES, nothing is so simple. Nothing is so easy. Doesn't it strike him as odd how quickly he fell for the golden princess? How easily he allowed himself to become drunk on her childish kisses, golden waves, and strange, ethereal exquisiteness?

Daniel Humphrey was a clever man, mind, he won himself a scholarship to one of the most prestigious academies on the Upper East Side, penned short stories for the New Yorker, and was set to have a novel published in the coming spring.

But he was also naive.

He believed that the world was fair. Ha. In order to survive in the concrete jungle that was privilege, he needed to see beyond the presentation and into the sickly, grotesque backdrop, something he had failed to do when he linked arms with the golden girl. He didn't see above the surface, he forced himself to keep away from all the dark shadows building inside of him, built walls to keep them inline (to avoid what he felt for the sharp eyed brunette). So what if they teamed up against Juliet Sharp? It was a means to save the girl he loved (he _loved_ Serena, he _loved_ her. Dan was a very good pretender, faker, liar...); so what if they enjoyed old Hollywood films, art exhibits, and seeing everything they've worked for come to fruition? Did it mean anything? No.

No.

No.

So how did he end up with an empty box of memories, his heart out of his chest as he looked at the Gossip Girl posts? Read the papers…listened to the hearsay of the streets?

Oh, he had tried push his imagination to its limits by convincing himself that he was in love with Serena for despite all the turmoil and trouble it brought, falling in love with Blair Waldorf, the perfectly broken porcelain doll, would have caused the end of all times.

It wasn't as if he feared Chuck Bass - no - he was afraid of giving away the one thing he kept for himself: his heart. It was a cliche thing to say and any good writer would have laughed at his face at the little secret he hid; but it was true. He gave away his sanity, his morality, his virginity, his family, his friendships, and his very soul and being…could he surrender the one part of himself that he'd locked away in a (borrowed) gilded cage?

(Danny boy ought to know, the cage was taken from Serena's hands when she gave herself to him. But everything borrowed must be paid…and since when did Serena actually _give_ anything anyway?)

* * *

"Blair, please," Dan murmured, the two of them standing outside the Met; it's baron and desolate on that December day and the chrome grayness of the sky shadows all of New York in tints of blue and a solemn, dull silver. He's clutching at the arm of a Gucci clad Blair and he knows that his tired, mahogany eyes give away far more emotion than he wishes.

She looks back at him with those cold, calculating cinnamon eyes of hers and he doesn't see one glimmer of warmth radiating in them.

"Let go of me, _Humphrey_," she emphasizes his last name and it smashes the cage around his heart into a million pieces. The broken bronze rolls away to reveal a beating organ, unprotected and open.

He hopes against hope that she won't break him.

"I'm already cutting it close to meeting Chuck and I do _not_ want the smell of Brooklyn on me when I do see him," she snipes, causing Dan's hand to reel back, as if burn.

The first blow is delivered. He breaks.

"Blair...just listen," he tries again, "I know that I'm not wealthy like Bass and that I never will be-" she laughs at this, a cold, cruel chuckle, "-but Blair…" he gently grasps her slim, leather gloved hand which she tries to pull away but his grip is insistent. "Just give me a chance. I can't forget about what happened between us and-"

"Try harder, Humphrey," the brunette Ice Queen hisses as she glares down at him, unrelenting. A monarch speaking down to a peasant, one who has overstepped his bounds. "I get that you're obsessed with me, and I don't blame you," she says this flippantly and with an almost childish pride that causes Dan's blood to boil in anger, "but you've got to get it though your head that the only reason I became close to you was to save Serena. And the only reason I kissed you was because of poor judgement and vulnerability - the fact is, Cabbage Patch," he flinches at the old nickname she's always had for him, "you should be ashamed of taking advantage of a lady."

And with that, she turns on her pin thin, five inch Louboutin heels and walks away from Dan, into the limousine awaiting her, and out of his life.

* * *

He tacts a 'forever' to the last part of his sentence as he glances down at the post on his cell phone, the latest one made by Gossip Girl. It seems like money can buy you any and everything (and maybe she always did love him, but Dan refuses to acknowledge that part) because guess who just got married? Blair and Chuck. The Ice Queen and King of New York.

He knows he'll sound like a complete and total ass when he thinks about Serena as a rebound but that's off limits now too - she's back on the arm of Nate Archibald, the golden boy. The Golden Couple has finally cleaned up their act and gotten together - after seven tumultuous years.

He stares down at the shoe box, filled with memories - some tangible, others not. A love note he'd written but never mailed, a photograph kept hidden…a red silk ribbon dabbed with Blair's perfume. They're all chinks and chips to a grander scheme, a doomed love.

It's all very romantic if you think about it, Dan muses darkly. For all those tragic and great romances on the old Hollywood screen, the ones he and Blair loved to watch, he never thought that they would _be_ one of those loves. A Rick and Ilsa. A Casablanca love.

Because she runs away to be with her Laszlo but he doesn't get a Renault as a friend and consolation (Nate's gone. The moment Dan kissed Blair, Nate was gone). He's left with memories in black and white, memories that are a myriad of invisible colors.

She's gone. And she stole his heart.

What a cliche.

He should've seen this coming, he should've known: poor boys just don't get the rich girl. But he realized that too little too late. Because Blair Waldorf's poison spreads, it leaks into the crevices that no one bothers to patch up because no one knows that they're there. And Dan thinks he should've paid more attention to those Upper East Side vultures back in high school because they all possessed a piece of knowledge that he didn't: they knew how to shield themselves from the venom that was heartbreak.

* * *

_Hey there Upper East Siders, you all seem especially perky to me today but maybe that's because you all hear the wedding bells as well? It seems like our Queen B and King C have finally declared truce and gotten themselves down the aisle and to the alter - with our golden girl S and golden boy N right behind them. _

_It seems like this winter will be a rosy one with a royal UES marriage and another hot, hot hookup. Because if there's one thing I know is that two perfect beings coming together can only create beautiful things - one beautiful couple is already phenomenal but two is absolutely sizzling! Cheers to our King and Queen and our fair maiden and her shining knight; champagne is on King C! _

_XOXO,_

_Gossip Girl_

* * *

**A/N: So I tried my hand at some angst and Dair (although it was originally supposed to be a sad Serena/Dan oneshot, I got carried away when I mentioned the Queen B) and I think it turned out all right. Definitely not one of my best works but I think it's an interesting read. It doesn't follow my usual writing style because I threw in a few succinct sentences here and there, random parenthesis, etc...**

**Anyway, drop me a review and tell me what you think! I'm trying to write a good angst/tragedy piece but I just can't bring myself to kill away any characters! **


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